Cisco Shapes the Future of Work with New Solutions Enabling Trusted Workplaces and Safe Return to Office

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03/25/2021 - 12:00 PM

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

News Summary:

New Cisco networking, security, cloud and collaboration solutions help businesses reimagine how they work while keeping employees safe, connected and productive.
Solutions address fears over the return to the office, the demand for a safe workplace, and IT tools that connect hybrid workforces in new ways.
Builds on Cisco's continued commitment to drive an inclusive recovery, including addressing the need for a secure and collaborative work environment that is accessible from anywhere.

From the beginning of the pandemic and throughout the recovery journey, Cisco has remained committed to helping people and communities around the world drive an inclusive recovery. As part of the ongoing effort, today, Cisco announced the availability of purpose-built technology and solutions that help companies reimagine how they work - and keep employees safe.

Whether an organization's goal is to bring people back into the office, or to evolve support for a remote or hybrid workforce, Cisco's new innovations – and the breadth of Cisco's networking, security, cloud and collaboration portfolio - support multiple options to create a Trusted Workplace that helps enable a Safe-Return-to-Office and a Secure Remote Workforce: from automating, securing, and scaling network connectivity, to social density and proximity insights for employee health and safety, to securely bringing people together to work however and wherever they want through Webex and collaboration devices that leverage AI, sensors and alerts.

For a tour of these Cisco technologies, watch this video.

Recent research shows:

A real fear of returning to the office, with 95% of respondents uncomfortable about returning to the office given the current health crisis¹
The desire for more advanced tools, with 96% of respondents wanting intelligent technology to improve work environments²
More prioritization of the employee experience, with 86% of respondents stating that empowering a distributed workforce with seamless access to applications and high-quality collaborative experiences is important or very important - this jumps to 95% for companies with 1000+ employees³

In response, organizations are looking to transform their workplace for a hybrid workforce and create a more inclusive future of work for all. This transformation requires organizations to prioritize adaptable, engaging, and trusted work experiences for their employees, customers, communities, and ecosystems. Business agility and resilience are core to this transformation, with research revealing 90% of CIOs and IT decision makers saying that, in the future, business agility and resilience will be inextricably linked⁴. This exemplifies the need for tools that connect, secure, and automate technologies and applications in order to transform at scale and bring the workforce and workplaces together – regardless of where employees work.

Cisco's portfolio and deep expertise in helping customers navigate challenging technology transformations, provide the tools to:

Empower a workforce to securely work from anywhere, on any device, anytime.
Enable a safe return-to-office by transforming offices and facilities optimized for productivity into trusted workplaces connected for health and wellness.
Break down the barriers of different geographies, personality types (such as introverts and extroverts), language preferences, and tools to fully realize communication experiences where everyone is included.

"As we think about the return to office, Cisco is helping our customers find solutions that work best for their teams. Whether they are in the office, at home, or on the road, every employee deserves the best experience," said Todd Nightingale, SVP and GM, Enterprise Networking and Cloud at Cisco. "We are committed to delivering solutions with the simplicity, agility, and resiliency businesses require to meet today's needs and thrive in the face of tomorrow's challenges."

Highlights include:

Trusted Workplace and a Safe Return to Office

Cisco Webex collaboration devices enable a safe return to office with capabilities like wayfinding, digital signage, touchless calls and meeting joins, room capacity alerts, environmental sensors, and more. Read more detail in related blog and in this video.
DNA Spaces Back to Business suite of applications provides location analytics and insight into user behavior to support customers' safe return to office strategies. With features including proximity reporting, and real-time and historical density and traffic monitoring, Cisco Catalyst and Meraki wireless customers can deploy DNA Spaces in less than 30 minutes for immediate business impact. Since their release, DNA Spaces Back to Business applications have been deployed in over 50,000 business locations.
Cisco Meraki cloud-first comprehensive platform includes MV smart cameras for reliable security monitoring to keep people, workplaces, critical infrastructure, and sensitive inventory secure. Using Meraki MV and Cisco DNA Spaces, building managers can see real-time footfall and presence, along with actionable analytics for safer, more productive spaces. New Meraki MT sensors provide more insight with real-time environmental monitoring, from temperature to humidity and leaks, to opened/closed doors and cabinets. Read more detail in related blog.
Cisco Industrial Asset Vision helps businesses simplify asset and facility monitoring with IoT sensors. To ensure workers are safe, remote monitoring provides real-time data from both IT and industrial environments and enables businesses to know workers' locations and minimize contact. In addition, actionable data from office space and assets help to better manage network equipment performance and maintenance.
Workplace Zero Trust for Industrial Networks brings IT and Operational Technology
(OT) security to the next level for organizations to protect operations while enabling more remote accesses and cloud applications in their industrial environments. It leverages Cisco Cyber Vision and Cisco ISE/DNA Center to create trusted production zones and ensure security policies are not disrupting industrial processes, ultimately providing consistent, identity-based, secure access to the network for users and devices. Read more detail in related blog.

Secure Remote Workforce Solutions

Cisco Secure Remote Worker is a simple, scalable, integrated security solution that delivers the strength and breadth of the Cisco platform approach to protect a remote workforce. Verify the identity of all users before granting access to corporate applications with Cisco Secure Access by Duo; enable secure access to the enterprise network for any user, from any device, at any time, in any location with Cisco AnyConnect Mobility Client (VPN); and coordinate defense against threats with Cisco Umbrella for internet security, Cisco Secure Email for email protection and Secure Endpoint for endpoint security. This solution is part of Cisco's cloud-native and integrated platform, SecureX.
Cisco Managed Remote Access from Cisco Customer Experience (CX) provides businesses with the expertise needed to ensure long-term remote or hybrid workforces are secure. With Cisco Managed Remote Access, businesses can leverage Cisco CX experts to not only build and scale up VPNs across their entire ecosystem, but leverage management and oversight services handled entirely by Cisco.
Seamless Collaboration for Secure Remote Work solutions enable a hybrid workforce and the flex worker with seamless calling, meeting and messaging. Organizations can empower their teams to securely communicate, ideate and iterate - working in sync with the apps they love. The latest advancements to Webex create more personalized experiences with customized layouts, advanced calling features and Webex Assistant intelligence for real-time translation, automated note taking, action items and more. Read more detail in related blog.

"Organizations are facing the need to transform their workforce and workplace amid unprecedented change, while maintaining productivity and avoiding complications. Those who didn't already have a plan to digitally transform have moved rapidly toward prioritizing one, and those that did have accelerated those plans. The need for a workforce that's protected and connected from anywhere, on any device requires businesses to be more agile and prioritize digitization, automation, security, and collaboration in order to create trusted work experiences for employees and customers," said Maribel Lopez, Founder and Principal Analyst at Lopez Research.

Join Cisco Live! next week to learn about the latest innovations from Cisco in shaping the future of work.

Additional Resources:

¹Cisco Global Workforce Survey, October 2020; ² Cisco Global Workforce Survey, October 2020; ³ Accelerating Digital Agility, March 2020; ⁴ Accelerating Digital Agility, March 2020

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